Cheerleading : Sport or Activity?

By Robin Kettles 

​As of December 9, 2016 cheerleading became a sport. According to International Olympic Community (IOC), cheerleading will be going through the process to become in the Olympics. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, “sport” is defined as an activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others for entertainment, while “cheerleading” is defined as a sport involving the performance of organized cheering, chanting, and dancing in support of a sports team at games. So both of these definitions basically is saying that cheerleading is a sport meanwhile others will say it’s not a sport it’s an activity.
 
Sport and activity are two different things. Activity is defined as “the state or quality of being active.” If that’s the definition for activity then that means all sports are activities. Cheerleading is a complex, physical, hard-working, and teamwork-oriented sport just like any other sports but the difference between cheerleading and any other sport is in cheerleading you do not take any breaks. For example in football, players get to take 3 timeouts each half which is 3 minutes each time out and a halftime which is about 15 minutes so all together they can take 21 minutes throughout each game. Meanwhile cheerleaders don’t have any timeouts; they just have to dance, stunt, tumble, and jump for a whole 2 minutes and 30 seconds without taking one break which is a lot if you have to put someone in the air who is heavier than you. Also football players have a lot of safety equipment while cheerleaders don’t. The only protector they have is that their flyer stays in the air or doesn’t injure themselves or the base.
 
Cheerleading is in the top 5 most dangerous sports,
in fact its number 4. So cheerleading is most definitely not “just an activity.”